love

I thought I was done posting heart-shaped objects. I thought heart-shaped objects are only part of the random things I see daily. I thought heart-shaped objects would no longer affect me.

Well, they do. This time. Today. They’re just too cute to ignore and the messages behind them are too loud to avoid. At least, that’s how I see them.

Heart-shaped stone

This one is a heart-shaped stone that lay along our path. Only a few number of stones have such shape, right? We could hardly ignore it.

It’s like the people we meet along our journey. At times, we are attracted to people who seem to have a heart of stone, adorable yet cold. But people are not made of stone. No matter how cold they appear, deep inside they have a soft spot, waiting for some connection. You might be the one they are waiting for.

Or, maybe, at one point or another, we acted as a heart of stone along somebody else’s journey. Perhaps, we can be a bit more loving.

Heart-shaped hole in a plastic bag.

In our household, we recycled plastic bags. The one we can use, we keep, the damaged ones get discarded. Seeing a hole in that one above made me decide to throw it. Surprisingly, the heart-shaped hole caught my attention.

Can showing love makes us damaged goods? When not in the right place, yes, like this plastic bag. But even damaged goods can delight us, especially when it shows love. Whatever form love shows, it always brings delight.

Sometimes one needs to get torn in order to realize the depth of love. But true love brings magic. True love heals and makes perfect even the most damaged of souls.

A heart in a bowl headed for the sink.

That one above is kind of dirty. It’s a bowl where we placed the fried bananas. I was about to put it in the sink when the heart-shaped image captivated me. Unusual, is it not?

It’s like when we are about to discard something in our life that it shows value.

It’s like when we value something, but keeping it wouldn’t make us any good.

It’s like a love that is there only for the moment, yet needs to go when the right time comes.

Love has many facets indeed. It’s part of the grand design of this universe. In whatever ways love touches us, one thing is sure – God is there for us and with us.

Though I find delight in taking photos of every heart-shaped thing that I see, I altogether stopped the activity, except for times when the object is unique and exceedingly adoring.

It is because I found the activity somewhat get in the way of my productivity. Like when I am totally engrossed in an activity but stop in the middle to take a photo of something that caught my eye. I lose my momentum in the process. So, I have to give it up no matter how tempting it seems.

What matters most to me is the realization I have in seeing heart-shaped things. I believed it’s the universe’ way of telling me that I am doing the right thing and I should strive to love more.

I still see heart-shaped objects every single day. It makes me smile and say: I love you. Though the focus is no longer there, yet it’s starting to become a regular part of my life. And it never fails to excite the innocent child in me.

Years ago, I had a productive argument with my best friend. She asked me for my preference between justice and mercy. I chose mercy over justice. While she preferred justice over mercy.

She then pointed out to me: What would happen if criminals wouldn’t be convicted, instead, they’d be forgiven? That would be a bad case, I conceded with her.

In the course of our exchange of views, we arrived at a story of a mother whose son faced a pending punishment due to a robbery case charged against him. The son must deal with the disciplinary action. The mother, however, appealed to the person to whom her son committed the crime. She pleaded that her son would be forgiven. What her son did was unacceptable. But as a mother, she loved him unconditionally and also suffered the way her son did. Thus, she asked that her son might be given a chance for a new life.

In this scenario, I told my friend that mercy could work wonders in this son’s life. On the contrary, she insisted that the son must face the punishment due to him that he might learn his lessons well.

Could justice save our world? I know that laws are needed and meant to carry justice. When justice is not pushed through, many people would relentlessly commit all kinds of crimes. But then we also need mercy, forgiveness, and love. In some cases, the value of mercy may apply best than pursue justice.

All cultures and beliefs have laws to be followed to ensure self-preservation. But then we must not underestimate the power of mercy, and traces of love. As far as I know, love is the only weapon that melts the hardest of hearts and disarms the heavily guarded individual.

So the next time we were to choose between justice and mercy, may we choose the best part.

With each passing of the day, seeing these heart-shaped objects became normal. Sometimes, I see them as perfectly shaped, other times, imperfectly. This lead me to these impressions:

Love is a mission

We all define heart as love. To the deeply spiritual, the heart is our core. I define this daily manifestation based on those two assumptions: that I am reminded to love every day; and that love is my core.

Loving everybody is not as easy as one, two, three. It means I have to love both the lovable and the unlovable, my likers and my dislikers, and so on. It’s not easy, yes, but like the rain that does not choose where to fall, whether to the good or bad, I also have to do my part. I have to extend love to whoever comes my way.

But before I could extend that love, I need to have it in myself first. I need to love myself unconditionally, without judgment, with total acceptance of who I am, who I’m not, what I am, and what I’m not.

I also need others’ guidance in order to love fully. I don’t have everything there is to know about love. Aside from constant prayer to be guided in this love journey, I also read Og Mandino’s book, “The Greatest Secret in the World.” The Scroll Marked II in it is very timely. It speaks of the love which should be practiced for five consecutive weeks. I’ll be posting that love part soon. It’s a good way to train the subconscious the practice of love.

Morsel of cake

Love is what you are

I got this line from Deepak Chopra’s Youtube video, that love is what we are, it is our core, our being. I felt it to be true. We are born out lof love, out of God’s breathe of love. I felt so blessed to be reminded of this truth. And to this truth, I hold on.

Loving the unlovable

The slanted, deformed, or the ones that turned upside down heart-shaped objects represent the people who look unlovable by their ways and personalities. But digging deep, we would discover what makes them what they are. Love could do that much easily. The main point is, they too, deserve to be loved.

Conclusion

Our mission is to love because we are love, and that we have to love even the unlovable.

Today, I come to the point where I could no longer contain the unusual occurrence in my life. Seeing heart-shaped objects made me amazed about life. Yet today, intimidation grabbed me by the arm. I keep seeing this shape while doing the laundry to cooking to washing dishes. I see it in bubbles, on the food, at the leaves, in pebbles, everywhere.

I wondered whether my eyesight has just tricked me, or was it my imagination? Or, perhaps this shape had been there all along. And because I’ve given it importance, my focus was fixed only in there. I’m inclined to believe so. It seems I’ve seen a dozen of it today. Not only the perfect heart shapes but also the deformed ones. Only that others quickly dissolved while I was out to retrieve my camera. Like the bubbles, or the food residues that I throw away.

The one good thing I gain from this experience at the moment is, every time I see this heart shape, I’m reminded of love. Nothing can feel so good than associating my every breath with love.

The above are the lines from The Carpenter’s song Love Me For What I Am. I just love these lines so much. Not that I want to be accepted as I really am, with all my sharp edges, my past and my imperfect self by others; but also because it made me ask myself if I do accept everyone as he/she is and love him/her for simply being himself/herself.

It is a question of acceptance that I need to answer honestly. When I got married, I was disappointed to learn that I married a different man. I married the person I did not expect him to be. All because I have ‘expectations.’ There were even times I want to rearrange everything in order to fit in with my expectations. But the hard fact is that there are things that are much better accepted as they are and not changed; for it is impossible to change them either.

I am even still at the process of accepting and loving myself as I am. Thus, I need to sing this song unto myself too, over and over again. For this is how love works. When I fully accept and love myself, then it would be easier for me to accept and love others too.

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Hi there! I am a learner, a searcher and a lover of everything beautiful. May you'd be inspired by my simple stories, life musings, bits of poetry, and my take on photography. I just have this petty thought that life is a never ending exploration of mundane things that lead to happiness and beyond.